


Pit of Vipers

by Vagevuur



Series: Arboldrians [1]
Category: Original Work, Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Arboldrian, Gen, Inkdrian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 10:08:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14913398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagevuur/pseuds/Vagevuur
Summary: Or, how an Arboldrian lost her arm and leg, and an Inkdrian her vision.The backstory of my Arboldrian Xiam!





	Pit of Vipers

Xiam put one foot in front of the other, trailing her hand along the rock wall at her side, being careful to not fall down the cliff at her other. Occasionally she stopped to hack at the rock with the tiny pickax she had on hand, retrieving stones she thought were pretty.

But the young Arboldrian’s ultimate goal lay higher up the mountain, in the form of a cave opening she had spotted from the river below.

Despite the obvious signs of there once being civilization in the wastelands had travelled through for the past few days, the cave looked like it hadn’t been touched in ages, and Xiam figured there must be plenty of shiny stones there. So, she had gathered up her tools to start making the lengthy trek up the mountain, along a trail that was barely wider than she was.

Her suspicions seemed to be proven correct, as the shiny stones kept increasing in quantity the closer to the cave opening she got, and Xiam could swear some of them even softly glowed when kept out of the sun.

Finally, she made it to her destination, and tentatively looked around the corner. It appeared the cave was less unthreaded than she initially thought, and she stopped to study her surroundings.

The cave walls were lined with shelves hacked into the wall, and they were filled to the brim with bottles containing an unknown, bright green substance. The floor was littered with pools of more of this substance, and in the middle of the space stood a raised bit of rock, upon which a large, empty bowl was placed. Animal bones were strewn about, and in the back of the cave lay a big coil of something unknown, next to a corridor that lead deeper into the mountain, from which Xiam could hear the clattering of a small stream.

Deciding that through the corridor were going to be the most stones, she started making her way over there, carefully avoiding the puddles, for she really didn’t want to know what it was. However, as soon as she came close, the coil started moving, uncurling itself and rising above Xiam. She could see what it was now; it looked like a snake, which she had often seen sleeping on rocks beside the river, but she had never seen one this big before, and instead of having a head, it was topped with the upper body of a woman, with silver skin and off-black sclera.

The snake creature opened its -her?- mouth, and Xiam prepared for the worst, but instead it let out something akin to an excited squeal.

“Oh my! A visitor! I haven’t had a visitor in decades!” She -the creature was definitely a she- patted Xiam on the head, “And such a cute one too! I always had a weakness for kids~! Welcome to my humble cavern, little one!” The snake lady looked around the cavern, and slowly stopped patting Xiam as realization seemed to dawn on her. “O dear! Look at this mess! I would have cleaned up a little had I known you’d be coming!” She started moving around the room with an uncanny finesse for someone her size, skillfully avoiding the pools as she brushed  the bones onto a single pile with her tail. “Oh! And I haven’t even introduced myself yet!” She made her way back to Xiam, lightly coiling around the Arboldrian, “you must forgive me, it’s just been such a long time! My name is Sigyn, I have been guarding these lands for quite a while~!” She made a grand gesture to the wasteland outside, “not that there is much to guard nowadays, if course. Now how about you, my child? How is it that they call you back home?”

Xiam hesitated a little, but then softly tapped at the space where a mouth should have been. Sigyn bend down to take a closer look, and then shot back up in surprise.

“But you have no mouth! Oh dear, then how do you eat?” The snake lady started moving around the cave again, almost knocking Xiam over in her haste. “Don’t you worry child, Momma Sigyn’s going to fix you right up~!”

Fix... her?

Sigyn motioned for Xiam to come to the bowl in the center, where the former had already stalled out three bottles of the green substance that she had retrieved from three separate shelves. She was mumbling to herself (something about ‘wood’ and ‘though’ and ‘localized’) as she measured out the contents and added them to the bowl. A strong smell sprung from the mixture -was it really a mixture?- that was slightly familiar, but Xiam couldn’t put her finger on it.

“There. All done!” Sigyn nodded, satisfied. She pulled a thin stick from her hair (which came cascading down her shoulders and elicited a “Whoops! Silly me!” from the serpent), the tip of which she dipped in the concoction. She lowered herself more to Xiam’s height. “Come child, come closer” she told the young Arboldrian, and, upon the latter doing so, lightly held her face (“I really like your eyes, they remind me of my sibling’s, with those shaped pupils”), brandishing the stick like a pencil. “Now, this might hurt a bit, but don’t worry! Not for long!” She reassured, bringing the stick closer to Xiam’s face.

And then suddenly the Arboldrian identified the smell.

It was acid.

Xiam jerked her head back in a panic, causing Sigyn to drop her stick.

The snake lady looked at her fallen tool slightly forlornly. “What’s wrong?”, she asked.

Xiam couldn’t say anything, only stumble around trying to get to the exit.

But the message was clear. Sigyn’s face contorted with rage, as she rose back to her full height.

“I JUST WANTED TO HELP YOU!”

Xiam was still trying to get to the exit, but the she-viper was now actively blocking her path, coiling around her to stop her from going anywhere.

“I JUST WANTED TO FIX YOU!”

The Arboldrian was grasping at the serpents scales, trying to find purchase to climb over it, but with one flick of her tail, the latter send the former flying.

“WHY WON’T YOU LET ME DO THIS FOR YOU!?”

The younger girl couldn’t answer, as much as she wanted to. She was stumbling backwards now, trying to get away from the she-devil, when suddenly her foot stepped on nothing, and then in acid. She instinctively held out her arm to catch her fall, and it joined her leg in the bright green puddle.

If she had a mouth she would have screamed.

The pain was unbearable, making Xiam just want to roll up and die, but she managed to gather all her strength and willpower, and pushed herself out of the puddle, saving the rest of her body from the same fate. Even freed from the pool of death, the acid ate away at her limbs, and the pain, oh the unbearable pain!

“IT COULD HAVE BEEN GREAT!”

The viper didn’t take pity on her, didn’t let her rest. Instead, she kept advancing on the squirming girl, fangs dripping with that same acidic venom.

A plan hatched in her pain-addled mind, and Xiam dragged herself up to the bowl. Even with vision clouded by the endless searing pain, and limbs that didn’t do what she wanted them to, she managed to pick it up and throw it at her attacker, who got an eyeful of the acid.

The scream the monster let out perfectly mirrored the Arboldrian’s internal one, who once more tried make a break the exit, now that the serpent was preoccupied. She stumbled into the bright light of day, and would have cried happy tears, if it wasn’t that moment, her acid-eaten leg broke off, making Xiam lose her balance and fall if the cliff, into the river that rushed deep below.

At least it doesn’t hurt anymore, she thought.

And then everything went black.


End file.
